If it progresses, diabetic nerve damage can lead to serious health problems. But it doesn’t have to progress. Keeping your blood sugar levels under control may not only reduce your risk of developing neuropathy by as much as 60%, it can also limit the damage and improve the symptoms if you already have neuropathy. That’s why it’s so important to recognize the symptoms of diabetic nerve damage.

Symptoms of Peripheral Neuropathy

Peripheral neuropathy is the most common kind of diabetic nerve pain. It usually hits feet first. “It starts in the longest nerves, which are in the feet, and tends to work up toward the center,” says Christopher Saudek, MD, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, and director of the Johns Hopkins Diabetes Center. “The symptoms can range from a mild sense of numbness to electric-type shooting pains or tingling, and they’re often worse at night.”

Talk to your diabetes doctor if you have these symptoms in your feet, legs, arms, or hands:

Tingling, burning, or prickling, which often starts in your toes or the balls of the feet and spread upward

Severe peripheral nerve damage can cause your feet to be numb, a special problem for people with diabetes, who may not be able to tell when cuts and blisters occur. "Once you have numbness, you have lost your main line of defense against injury,” says Farhad Zangeneh, MD, assistant professor at George Washington University School of Medicine and medical director of the Endocrine, Diabetes and Osteoporosis Clinic in Sterling, Va.

Examining your feet every day, looking between and underneath each toe, protecting feet from injury, and wearing properly fitted shoes are critical to prevent even small cuts and scrapes from becoming infected or ulcerated.